PIPE CLEANER

Smoking pipe cleaners normally use some absorbent material, usually cotton or sometimes viscose. Bristles of stiffer material, normally monofilament nylon or polypropylene are sometimes added to better scrub out what is being cleaned. Microfilament polyester is used in some technical pipe cleaners because polyester wicks liquid away rather than absorbing it as cotton does. Some smoking pipe cleaners are made conical or tapered so that one end is thick and one end thin. These are useful to use the thin end for the small bore of the pipe stem and then the thick end for the bowl or the wider end of the stem. When cleaning a pipe, pipe cleaners are normally discarded after one or two uses